The executive order seeks to block state laws that Trump believes are hindering innovation

Trump's order to block states' "AI" laws will not go unchallenged

The executive order seeks to block state laws that Trump believes are hindering innovation

The executive order issued by US President Donald Trump, which seeks to block state laws related to artificial intelligence that the president believes are hindering innovation, will face political and legal opposition from states seeking to maintain their right to regulate this rapidly growing technology.

The order, which directs federal agencies to sue states and withhold funding if their AI laws are deemed problematic, is considered a victory for technology companies, which argue that the multiplicity of state laws is hindering the "US" ability to compete with China in AI. 

However, experts indicated that the Trump administration will face legal obstacles in implementing it and potential opposition from Republican-majority states, according to Reuters.

Joel Thayer, president of the Institute for Digital Progress, said: "There is not much legal authority that the administration can rely on to implement a large part of this order." One of the key enforcement mechanisms in the order directs the Commerce Department to prevent states with burdensome AI regulations from accessing the $42 billion Broadband Equity and Deployment (BEAD) program.

This decision could be opposed by some of the president’s staunchest supporters in rural areas. BEAD funding is crucial for increasing internet access in rural areas, a key voting bloc for Trump, who won rural voters by 40 percentage points (69% to 29%) in 2024, a higher margin than in 2020 and 2016.

Dean Paul, a former White House official who helped draft the administration’s AI action plan released this summer, said that linking the funding to AI regulations faces uncertainty. Courts will consider how AI regulations relate to the broadband law’s objective and the fact that several states have already received preliminary approval for the funding.

Paul added that whether Congress intended to grant the administration the authority to regulate artificial intelligence at the state level when it approved broadband funding will also be a significant legal question. 

He continued, "I think the administration has a 30 to 35 percent chance of succeeding legally." Some Republican governors, including Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, have previously expressed opposition to federal intervention in blocking their states' laws.

In addition, the executive order tasks the Justice Department with challenging state laws on the grounds that they violate the Constitution by interfering with interstate commerce. The venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has endorsed this view, noting that the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution implicitly limits the states' power to legislate.

However, courts have rejected previous attempts to block state-level privacy legislation based on the section of the Constitution known as the "latent commerce clause," according to Slade Bond, a former Justice Department official who works with Americans for Responsible.